Gone From There Now
by Psicygni
Summary: On the ship, when Amanda sat on Father's shoulders she could raise her hand above her head and it would brush the ceiling of the corridors. On Earth, it's nothing but wind and air and sky. "I can't see the stars," she whispers to Father. It isn't logical to want, but Mom always says she loves Father's and Amanda's illogical parts the best. "I want to go back home."


On the ship, Uncle Jim called her birthdays 'anniversaries' and Mom called them 'always one week too late' and Father called them 'illogical,' but he always made her waffles anyway.

"It's because you were born at the start of our five year mission," Uncle Jim would say every year, holding her upside down by her ankles. It was everyone else's second Big Space Adventure, but her first, and Uncle Jim was always willing to pretend that he had never been on one without her.

"It's because you were born a week too late for your grandparents to see what an adorable baby you were," Mom would say, tickling Amanda's stomach where her shirt had fallen towards her arms.

"Grandfather saw me," Amanda would say. She likes that part of the story the best, where they got to New Vulcan when she was a month old. She has a picture of Grandfather holding her and she and Mom are entirely sure he's smiling, even if Father won't agree. She has some pictures of Father smiling at her, too, and sometimes she and Mom look at them when away missions take too long.

On Earth, there aren't away missions, and on Earth, her grandparents are there for her birthday and Uncle Jim isn't and she doesn't want to eat waffles if she can't be on the ship.

"Would you prefer pancakes?" Father asks her, kneeling next to her bed. Their house in San Francisco is too loud since there's too many people visiting, and she doesn't know most of them. She likes the quiet of her room, and thinks maybe Father does too, because more than once that week he's joined her there with his own padd when she sneaks away from her cousins and aunts and uncles to read.

"I'm not hungry," she says, kicking at the blankets. She misses her bed from the ship, and her sheets feel different here, even the ones with selhats on them, and the other ones with the alphabet in eighty six languages that Doctor Bones gave Mom and Father before Amanda was born.

"It is logical that you eat."

"You said it was illogical to eat when one is not hungry," she corrects.

Father comes very close to sighing, which always makes Mom smile. But Mom isn't here, because Father always gets her up on her birthday. She's not even excited about it, even though she knows that there's presents waiting from Mom and Father and Uncle Jim, and she knows he got her five, one for each year, and the fifth one is really, really big because she saw it last night before she went to bed, even though she wasn't supposed to. And Doctor Bones got her something, too, she thinks, because he had been extra grumbly when she had asked him, back when they were on the ship. And there's something from Mr. Sulu, since their house has a small garden. She doesn't want to go out there, not really, because it's too foggy and cold, but she thinks she would maybe like to see what he got her.

"That was in reference to your desire to consume a second dessert. It was not nutritious."

"Neither pancakes nor waffles are nutritious."

Father is silent for a long moment before he reaches out and smoothes her hair back from her face. Where his hand touches her forehead, she can feel his concern for her sharpen, clearer than it was just through their bond.

"Would you like some fruit, perhaps?"

"No."

"Cereal?"

"No."

"Plomeek soup?"

She just shakes her head and pulls up the blankets until they're under her chin.

"Amanda, you must eat."

"No, thank you," she says because Father often tells her that if you're polite, you're more likely to be listened to. She's not sure he's entirely correct, because Doctor Bones isn't always very polite with Uncle Jim, but Uncle Jim always ends up in Sickbay anyway, and he's the captain and can do whatever he wants.

Or was the captain. She's not sure what he is, anymore. He had to leave with all of them and she doesn't know if he can still be a captain if he's not on his ship. She imagines him somewhere without his stripes on his sleeve, just in his gold shirt that would look like Mr. Chekov's. But maybe he doesn't even have that anymore, she thinks and it makes her throat hurt. She tries to picture Uncle Jim in something other than his gold shirt, but she's only seen him out of it when he's at the gym or when he's in his dress uniform. She can't imagine he would ever wear his dress uniform by choice, since he swears it's trying to choke him whenever he puts it on and it's not logical to spend too much time in something so dangerous, so she decides that wherever he is, he's in his shorts and the gray sweatshirt that says 'Starfleet Academy Xenolinguistics Club'.

Her mom has one, too, and once, Uncle Jim had pretended he couldn't tell them apart and had put on her mom's. It was too short and only barely came past his elbows, but he had worn it all night and Amanda's stomach had hurt from laughing.

It hurts, now, too, even though it's her birthday, and she presses her face into her pillow.

"Perhaps it would be logical to simply dispense with breakfast and instead have lunch," Father says, his thumb smoothing tears from her cheek. "Would you like a sandwich?"

If she doesn't have breakfast, then she doesn't either have to have waffles like they're on the ship again, but they're not, or not have waffles, like they're not on the ship, which they're not. It's logical, she's pretty sure.

She nods and Father helps her blow her nose into a tissue before she gets out of bed.

…

On the ship, turning five was a Big Thing, as Uncle Jim called it, because it meant that their Big Space Adventure would be over.

On Earth, being five means that the children in her new school don't think she should be able to do Algebra yet.

So that night, logically, she refuses to do her math work and sits kicking the leg of the table when her parents try to make her.

"Mr. Chekov isn't here to help me," she explains.

"You are quite capable of completing those problems on your own," Father says.

"He's not here to check them."

"I am able to check if your work is correct."

She doesn't have an answer to that, so she just kicks the table again.

"Sweetie, please don't," Mom says, so Amanda kicks the rung of her chair instead.

"Sorry," she mutters, when Mom frowns at her and Father raises his eyebrow. She concentrates on sitting very still, which is hard, and on not wanting to do her math problems, which is a lot harder. She likes math, but reminds herself that she only likes it when Mr. Chekov teaches her because he gets so excited and sometimes they both talk really fast and he doesn't even mind when she gets up half way through a lesson to run around, because he likes running around, too. They used to chase each other through the corridors and once they nearly collided with Father. Mr. Chekov had turned red and had started calling Father 'sir' and 'Commander' over and over, but Father had just told them to exercise greater caution.

"Do you want to do some reading, instead? I brought you home the Odyssey from the Academy library today," Mom says and Amanda shakes her head.

She doesn't want to read the Odyssey even though she really liked the Illiad and read it in one day. She had spent the next week telling Doctor Carol about it, and when she was satisfied that she knew all about it, had told Mr. Scotty and then Nurse Christine, too.

But nobody at her school knows about it and they all read One Fish, Two Fish, which isn't even scientifically accurate, and even the children who are older than her and are at her 'academic level', as Father says, read books about little boys in giant fruits and that's just plain illogical.

She doesn't want to read if there's nobody to talk about the stories with, and Mom and Father don't count, so she wants to run around the saucer and see how long it takes her now that she's five. But she can't, because the ship's at Spacedock and she's in San Francisco and she doesn't know where Mr. Chekov is, and he's the best at timing her.

"Maybe we can go to Russia," she suggests. "If we go to Russia, I can practice my Russian and read a book in it, and maybe I'll do some of my math on the way."

"Sweetie, we can't go to Russia, although I'm sure Mr. Chekov would love to hear from you. Do you want me to help you write him a note?"

"But Mr. Scotty could beam us over there, or Mr. Sulu could fly us and I won't even ask to sit in the co-pilot seat this time, I'll be really quiet and wear my safety harness right and do my math on the way."

"Amanda, you have school in the morning," Father says and she knows that school is 'non-negotiable'. There's a list of 'non-negotiable' items, with an age written next to each one and she isn't allowed to even think about negotiating school until she's eighteen, which is a really, really long time away even though she's five now. She can negotiate getting her ears pierced when she's twelve and her bed time when she's ten, and getting her own comm when she's eight, but she doesn't even want her own comm and won't ever get her ears pierced if maybe she could skip school to go to Russia with Mr. Sulu and Mr. Scotty and maybe Keenser, too, and Mr. Chekov could show them around and show them how great Russia is, and maybe she could go to school there, instead, and Mr. Chekov could be her teacher.

She knows that Mom and Father looked at a lot of different schools for her, and that this one has 'interdisciplinary learning' and 'student directed pedagogy' but she doesn't like it. She doesn't tell them that because they want her to like it a lot, like they did when they were children, but she thinks they know, anyway.

Uncle Jim once told her that didn't like school when he was her age, so she thinks it's probably ok to feel like that.

"Mr. Scotty and Mr. Sulu are with their families right now," Mom explains, even though she's explained that to Amanda three times already and Amanda knows, she just wants it to be different.

"I'm going to bed," she announces. It's hard to fall asleep without the hum of the engines, but it's harder to imagine Mr. Chekov running around in Russia without her, and doing math without her, and Mr. Sulu flying a shuttle craft without her, and Mr. Scotty and Keenser beaming someone other than her, even though beaming feels funny and she doesn't always like it. Doctor Bones doesn't like it either, and she wonders if he liked school, or maybe they can dislike it together because that's fun to do, sometimes. Once, they disliked things all day, because they both really liked making Father confused so much, and the more they disliked things like light switches and turbolift doors, the more fun they had with Father. She knows that nobody else knows that Doctor Bones isn't actually that grumpy, and she thinks maybe she'll tell Father and Mom and Uncle Jim that one day, or maybe she won't because she likes being the only one who's allowed to have a slice of peach pie and hear about Georgia and see Doctor Bones smile and laugh.

"Amanda, you have not yet had your dinner."

"I want to have dinner in the mess hall. We can have cornbread and barbeque. I'll even have tofu instead of meat, even though it's gross."

"Darling-"

"I want to have dinner in the mess hall, and sleep in my bed, and go to the rec room to play checkers with Doctor Carol and don't call me that because only Doctor Bones calls me that and he isn't even here anymore and-"

Mom hugs her really, really tight, like Amanda's a baby again even though she's not. She's five and she hates being five and wishes that she was four again, because if she was four she'd still be on the ship.

"I want to be with my family," she hiccups. She presses her face into Mom's shirt, even though it's all wet and icky.

"I know you do, sweetheart. And you know what else? They all think about you every minute of everyday."

Amanda shakes her head, because nobody can think about anyone else that much, even though sometimes she tries really, really hard to do so. At night, after she's gotten an acceptable number of kisses from both Mom and Father, and after her stuffed animals are arranged right, and after the door is open 13.6 degrees, since the doors here are funny and don't slide back and forth like they should, she'll think about each and every crew member and sometimes she thinks about them all at once, like when they had all hands meetings and Amanda got to come and everybody was there and it was too hard to even decide who's lap to sit on with all those choices.

"They miss you, too, and they love you so, so much," Mom whispers, but it just makes Amanda's stomach hurt even worse. "I know, baby girl, I know, it's ok. It's going to be ok."

…

On the ship, she knew everyone. She knew their names, their rank, their department, and where they were from.

On Earth, she doesn't know many people at all.

"Hi there," one of the lab technicians at Father's new office says to her and Amanda tries really hard not to look for Doctor Carol, or even Ensign Masters, because she knows they're not there. Instead, it's this other man and Amanda doesn't know him, and doesn't want to know him, so she just puts her head back against Father's thigh, even though Father says that when she holds his leg like that it impedes his ability to walk.

She doesn't care, though, and she has to hold on tight because Father's old lab was on Deck Eight and she just had to go up three Jefferies tubes and down one hallway and then she'd be home. Now, she would have to take a bus and walk really far on a really crowded sidewalk and climb up three really big hills and climbing hills isn't nearly as fun as climbing ladders in Jefferies tubes because there's no Engineering Ensigns to say hi to, and Keenser is never there, and Mr. Scotty never is either, to call her a 'wee lass' and to tell her about Scotland while he worked.

Father used to let her push the buttons on spectrometers or look through microscopes or help check for any tricorders that needed recalibration, but this lab has different 'protocols' and stricter 'regulations.' She knows that she wouldn't break anything, and Father knows that too, but he said he's not the Chief Scientist here and she doesn't like that, at all. She thinks that maybe if Uncle Jim came he could do something about it because he's really good at breaking rules. He let her break rules sometimes, too, like staying up twenty minutes past her bedtime one night, or giving her an extra slice of his birthday cake even though she couldn't finish it, or once letting her sit in his chair on the bridge even though nobody else except sometimes Father is allowed to do that. But she did and it was the best, ever, and he let her push three of the buttons and let her spin it around and she thinks that maybe if he came to Father's new lab, the two of them could make it so that she could look at a tricorder.

But Uncle Jim isn't there and she doesn't even know if he's ever been to Father's new lab. Amanda doesn't blame him, because it's not a very nice lab, not without Doctor Carol or Ensign Masters and she wishes that Father hadn't had to go back to work after he got her from school, because they could be anywhere else, instead.

"Soon," he says, because he has his hand on hers, even though the only reason he does is that he's trying to pull her away from his leg so that he can do his work. "I must finish this, and then we can go pick up your mother from her office."

Amanda doesn't like Mom's new office, either, or at least the lobby because she's not even allowed upstairs, not even once because of 'security' and 'vulnerabilities in intelligence' even though Amanda is really, really good at keeping secrets, like that time all the Security Ensigns came back from shore leave really, really late and they didn't want her to tell Father.

"Why can't you two have stations next to each other again?" Amanda asks, because it was so much fun to sit under their consoles when they were on the bridge. She used to bring her toys and play under there, even though she had to stop bringing balls because they would roll all over and Doctor Bones said that Uncle Jim was probably going to trip and break his neck. She never found out how Doctor Bones was so sure, because he was never as good at statistics as Father, but she stopped bringing balls anyway.

"Our research necessitates specialized equipment," Father explains. "Please release my leg, Amanda."

"But don't you want to work together?" Amanda asks, because even though she only went to the bridge sometimes, it was fun to think about Father and Mom there, together, with Uncle Jim and Mr. Sulu and Mr. Chekov and Doctor Bones, even though he didn't even have his own chair and he definitely couldn't fit under the console with her. She would have offered, if she thought he could have, since it's important to be polite, but she thinks he liked standing behind Uncle Jim and crossing his arms a lot.

"Yes."

"Then why don't you?"

"The need for specific equipment dictates-"

"I know," Amanda says and lets go of his leg so that she can cross her own arms and put on her Doctor Bones face.

"It is logical."

"I know," she says again, because she does. She's really good at logic and really likes it a lot but sometimes it's just the worst.

"I understand," Father says quietly, and lets her sit on his lap while he works, even though she doesn't know if it's even allowed in his stupid new lab because she can definitely see through the microscope if she stretches a little.

…

On the ship, she only ever went outside on shore leave.

On Earth, she has to go outside every single day.

"It's cold," she explains to Mom when she suggests that they go to the park. "And wet. And sometimes the wind blows and I don't like it."

"Occasionally it is windy or is it that you occasionally do not enjoy it when it is?" Father asks.

"Both. Always. I don't like any of it."

"We need to get you out of the house," Mom says. "You can either wear your blue coat or your green sweater."

"Or I can stay here," Amanda says, because she learned a long time ago that even when Mom and Father try to pretend there are only two choices, there are actually lots more.

"We can either go to the park or a museum," Mom continues.

"I can read my book or practice my ka'athrya."

"We can go to a library or to the aquarium."

"I can organize my room or I can write Grandfather a letter."

Mom puts her hands on her hips, so Amanda does, too, even though she's sitting on the floor because then it's even harder for Mom to get her out the door.

"You'd really rather organize your room than go do something fun?"

"Yes. Having a neat and tidy living space helps clear the mind."

Mom sighs, really loud.

"Spock. Tell your daughter she needs to set foot outside this weekend."

"Amanda, listen to your mother."

"No."

"Amanda."

"I want to stay here." Mom says that Amanda's to big for her to carry anymore, and Amanda doesn't think that Father will actually make her go out, not if she can come up with a logical reason to stay, really really quickly. "Rather than attempt an enriching activating outdoors, I could-"

"Blue coat. Green sweater," Mom says in a voice that makes Amanda jump up and reach for the closest one. Sometimes Mom uses that tone with Uncle Jim and it's funny, except when she uses it on both of them, and then they have to clean up their mess really fast. "She gets this from you, you know."

"It is unreasonable to assume that stubbornness is an inherited genetic trait. However, even with that assumption, you posses sufficient quantities at which to-"

"Me?" Mom asks. "Me?"

"Your mother," Father says very seriously as he bends down to help Amanda with her zipper. "Was not qualified to take Advanced Morphology as a first year cadet."

"She did, anyway," Amanda tells him because she likes this story a lot.

"Someone finally, finally, admitted that perhaps the prerequisites did not accurately predict whether or not a student would succeed in the course."

"That was you," Amanda tells Father.

"Aren't you glad that I was so willing to persevere?" Mom asks, standing on her toes to kiss Father.

"That you were so obstinate?"

"Forward thinking."

"Obdurate?"

"Persistent."

"Intractable?"

"Determined."

"Stop," Amanda says, wrinkling her nose because they're kissing again.

"Someday, I'll tell you about your particularly timorous father and how he wouldn't kiss me for another eighteen months," Mom says, handing Father's jacket to him.

"What does timorous mean?"

"It means that he turned bright green and started mumbling when he finally asked if I wanted to go out to dinner."

Amanda looks back at Father as he buttons his coat.

"He's green now," she whispers to Mom. "But Father doesn't mumble."

"He is a little green, isn't he. And trust me. He mumbled."

"I did not. I think perhaps that your above average aural sensitivity is not as exemplary as you often believe, if you were not able to clearly understand me."

Mom puts her arm around Father's waist as they walk out the door, her other hand tight on Amanda's, so that when Mom laughs, Amanda can feel it in her whole arm.

…

On the ship, she had known the other children since she was born and they no more cared that her father was half Vulcan than they cared that Nasesk was Cardassian even though her adoptive parents were human, or that Thelev was the first Tellarite-Andorian hybrid, or that any of the others were different in their own ways, too, except for Trusskyo and Prusskyo who were conjoined and obviously really similar, even if they disagreed with each other a lot.

On Earth, when she cuts her knee at recess, all the other children want to know what color her blood is.

"It's just blood," she tries to explain. It's not even that interesting, even though hemoglobin kind of is. But blood itself isn't and she wishes they would all go away and maybe that Doctor Bones would come, or even Nurse Christine, or Doctor M'Benga. Doctor Bones used to give her a lollipop whenever she had to go to Sickbay, and he always told her not to tell Father, and she always did because then she and Uncle Jim could watch them argue. Uncle Jim would have a lollipop, too, and they would compare what color their tongues turned.

The school nurse doesn't have lollipops, or the dermaplasts with dinosaurs that Doctor Bones ordered for her, and when she sticks out her tongue at the mirror, it's just normal looking.

"I apologize," she says, quickly closing her mouth when the nurse looks at her. She knows that sticking out your tongue isn't polite except if you're on Epsilon Cerberi III.

"That's a good little Vulcan," the nurse says and smiles. Amanda doesn't know what she means, because while her father doesn't stick out his tongue, he also doesn't apologize very often, except to Mom when she accuses him of being 'obtusely logical on purpose.'

"Run along, now," the nurse says, but Amanda doesn't run because Mr. Chekov still isn't there.

…

On the ship, everybody hugged her. Uncle Jim would grab her and toss her as high as he could when she ran at him, Dr. Bones would squeezer her like a big bear would, if bears hugged and didn't just maul you like you were a salmon or a blueberry or a bamboo stalk. Doctor Carol would kneel down and kiss and tickle her until Amanda couldn't breathe, and Mr. Scotty and Mr. Sulu and Mr. Chekov would all let her grab their knees so they couldn't walk until they'd hugged her back.

On Earth, she learns that Vulcans don't hug.

"No," she says when her mom leans down on the sidewalk outside the school. Amanda steps back and holds onto the straps of her backpack so that she won't reach out for her mom because she really, really wants to. But Naler and Haaj and Haini had been really sure that Vulcans don't hug other people and they're older than Amanda and they know more than she does and as soon as she thought about it, she realized that Grandfather and none of the Vulcans on New Vulcan ever hugged, and so she had thanked them for helping her realize that. She had explained that she still gets confused sometimes, because her mom is human, and most of the crew is human, but they hadn't known what a 'crew' was, and it was too hard to explain all the 457 beings that worked on the Enterprise, so Amanda had eventually stopped trying. They hadn't really been listening, anyway, even though Amanda would have loved to tell them more about Janice, who always let Amanda slip a note onto Uncle Jim's lunch tray and who was really, really good at doing Amanda's hair.

But apparently Vulcans don't wear their hair in braids, either, and Amanda is thinking about how to ask Mom if she can cut her hair really short when she realizes her mom's kneeling in front of her.

"The sidewalk's dirty," she says, pointing to her mom's knee, since Father says humans often aren't as observant as Vulcans, even if Mom says that nobody has to be that observant all the time. Amanda doesn't know where the upper limit of acceptable observations is, but as she looks at her mom's knee on the cement – which is horrible and scratchy and not the nice carpets or tile of the ship – she realizes something else is different too. "That's not your uniform."

Amanda reaches out to touch her mom's gray sleeve, but pulls her hand back because she's not even sure Vulcans are supposed to touch each other.

"This is my other uniform," her mom explains, holding her hands out to Amanda. Her mom does this sometimes with Father, too, when she wants to talk and he doesn't. But Amanda doesn't want to talk, she wants to know why her mom's uniform is different, and her hair is different, too, and even her boots aren't her normal ones.

She's touching her mom's hair, studying how it's pulled back in a small knot at the base of her neck, not her normal ponytail, before she realizes what she's doing and holds onto her backpack again.

"Look," Mom says, pointing to the cuff of her gray sleeve. "This uniform has rank stripes. That's pretty neat, isn't it?"

"It's acceptable," Amanda says, because it's really neat, but she also really doesn't like the gray uniform. She likes her mom's red one because it's soft and because it reaches the floor when Amanda wears it, which made Father smile and made Uncle Jim spit his coffee on the table. That had made Father frown, which Doctor Bones called 'more expressions than in the last eighteen months.' He had high fived her, which always felt funny because her hands are like her father's, but which she liked because she could always tell how much Dr. Bones loved her when their hands touched, not matter how grumpy he pretended to be. Sometimes he touched Father, when he was really hurt, and Amanda thought that maybe Father liked knowing how much Doctor Bones loved him, too.

She looks at her mom's hands, still waiting for her, and blinks quickly and looks away.

"How was school?" Mom asks.

"Satisfactory," Amanda says because it sounds like Father, except that when she thinks about him, she realizes that he was wearing a gray uniform when he dropped her off that morning. She likes his blue one better because it's not as stiff and boring looking and his is special because it's designed to keep him warm even at the ambient temperature of the ship. She remembers, once, when she was really little and the environmental controls were malfunctioning, he took it off and wrapped her in it and held her on the couch until she stopped shivering. She still thinks about that, sometimes, being warm and snug, his arms tight around her as he told her a really long story about I-Chaya until the heat started working again.

"Did you play with any of the other children?"

"Vulcans don't play," Amanda whispers, because she really likes the swings, which are kind of like the vines on Eta Carinae V. She had really wanted to go on them except that the older children had been watching and she had been practicing being Vulcan, which had turned out to be pretty boring and involved just standing really still, which had been hard to do for so long.

"Your dad plays chess. And a very, very long time ago, long before you were born, he and I played raquetball at the Academy."

"Those are organized, structured leisure activities," Amanda explains, because sometimes it helps to use big, long words. Her mom had a list of vocabulary Amanda had wanted to learn taped to the replicator in their quarters, but she hasn't seen it since they moved and the other children at school don't know any good words, anyway, so she hasn't asked about it.

"You used to play with your Uncle Jim."

"He's human," Amanda clarifies, but the words feel thick and heavy and swallowing is hard. She sniffs and wipes her hand under her nose, since she's pretty sure that Vulcans don't cry, either.

"I'm human," Mom says softly.

"I know," she says, wiping her nose again.

"Sometimes, when I haven't had a good day, I want to feel better," Mom continues. "Do you remember what hormones are released to make someone feel better?"

"Oxytocin, seratonin, dopamine," Amanda recites. Doctor Bones had shown her a real brain once and answered her questions about it all through dinner. Uncle Jim had looked really green after that, which Amanda thought was funny because only her father ever looked that color.

"And what's a really good way to get your, um, what is it again that releases them?"

"Hypothalamo-hypophysial blood vessels of the median eminence," Amanda says automatically.

It makes her mom smile, which makes Amanda want to smile even though Vulcan's don't do that.

"You know, I had to explain that to your dad. I mean, I had to look it up, of course, and then leave it on my padd for the whole conversation so that I could reference it correctly and then he had to look at it himself. But, I was trying to explain to him that humans really, really like hugs from people who love them because it makes us feel so good and safe and cared for."

"Mom, Vulcans don't hug," she explains carefully, since her mom knows a lot about non-Terran cultures and Amanda isn't sure why she's so confused.

"But you know what Vulcans are really good at?"

"Yes?" Amanda asks, because she made a list once, one for humans and one for Vulcans. Uncle Jim helped her with them and they made copies, because he said he wanted to give one to her father and one to Doctor Bones.

"One thing that Vulcans are really excellent is helping. Your dad agreed that if he had the ability to make someone feel better, even if it wasn't something Vulcans did very often, or ever, then it was logical to do so."

"Do you mean that you would like a hug?"

"Yes, please," Mom says and her uniform is different and scratchy and stiff, but it's not that bad, Amanda thinks as she rests her cheek on her mom's shoulder and tightens her arms around her neck.

"Do you feel better?" Amanda asks after a long moment, snuggling closer.

"I do," Mom whispers, squeezing her and kissing her hair. She continues in a whisper only Amanda can hear. "You know, I think it's ok that you sometimes do things that other Vulcans don't do. Because you do other things that humans don't. And sometimes it's really hard to be different, but it's still a good thing." Her mom hugs her tight as she says it and Amanda balls her jacket in her fists. "But you know what? Your Uncle Jim is different, too. He's so, so smart and he's so special that he gets to run a whole ship. And you know why he's so special? Because he never follows anyone else's rules. He only ever does what he thinks is right, and he is only ever himself. And that's why he's so incredible, because he's proud to be who he is."

"Uncle Jim said to write it down anytime that you say anything nice about him," Amanda whispers. "But I can just remember to tell him because I have a eidetic memory."

"You do," Mom says, pulling back enough to kiss Amanda's forehead.

"He has to do what Doctor Bones says," Amanda tells her, because being precise is important.

"He does. But every once in a while, he does something really, really unhealthy just so that he makes sure he's being true to himself," Mom says with a gentle smile.

"Like ice cream?"

"Like ice cream," Mom confirms.

"But Vulcans don't eat ice cream."

"And yet, your father loves ice cream."

"As much as he loves me?" Amanda asks, because she likes to know all the things her father doesn't love as much as he loves her and Mom.

"Not as much as he loves you," Mom says, like always. "But maybe if we go get some for ourselves, we could bring him back a scoop."

"He'd like that."

"He'd like that a lot. And you probably know what flavor he'd like best."

"I do," Amanda says, because she knows everyone's favorite flavors, even Uncle Jim who changes his all the time.

"Do you want me to carry your backpack as we walk?"

"I can carry it," Amanda decides. Vulcans are much, much stronger than humans which is why she always wins when she arm wrestles Uncle Jim, so it's probably easier for her to carry it than for Mom to. "Maybe I'll hold your hand, on the way, because Vulcans and humans both do that, even though you're just human."

"That sounds like a plan," Mom says, holding out her hand for Amanda to take.

"Stan," Amanda responds, because rhyming is important no matter who you are.

…

On the ship, Mom worked late on Tuesdays, so she and Father made and ate barkaya and played chess. After her bath and before bed, Father would take her to the Communications lab and Mom would have a cup of tea while she told Amanda her bedtime story

On Earth, Mom works late on Thursdays and Father can't take Amanda to her office, so Amanda doesn't get to see her after school, at all.

"I don't want to go to bed until Mom comes home," she whispers.

"Your mother will not be home until after you are asleep."

Amanda is pretty sure she can stay up all night. She did, once, when Father got hurt really bad and Mom was still off the ship and nobody thought to look for her behind the Central Subspace Polarization Module. Keenser had finally found her and gave her his uniform shirt because she had been so cold. She had woken up in it, in her bed, with Uncle Jim snoring softly in the chair next to it.

She's supposed to sit properly in her chair, but she can't reach the top tier of the chess board. She knows better than to kneel or stand, so when she wants to move her bishop up there, she goes into the kitchen for a stool and brings it back into the living room. On the ship, Mr. Scotty made her a chair that was taller, but they had to leave it behind.

"You are still expected to go to bed at your normal time," Father continues, moving his pawn.

"It is not correct to posit that Mom will be home after I'm asleep. Her return is dependent on her work schedule, not on my state of consciousness."

She can feel Father's pride in her deduction, even more so when he reaches over to squeeze her fingers.

"I stand corrected."

"You are sitting," she helpfully points out and grins when he nearly smiles. But Mom isn't there to laugh, and she isn't there to tease Father, and she isn't there to get up from the couch and kiss both of them on the cheek because they are being 'adorable' even though both Amanda and Father insist they are doing no such thing.

"She will be home after the time at which it is logical for you to be in bed, so that you are well rested for tomorrow," Father says.

"I can't sleep without her telling me a story," Amanda says, but when Father raises an eyebrow, she corrects her statement. "I cannot sleep well, I mean. Bedtime rituals aid in developing healthy sleep habits. It is inefficient and detrimental to my rest to alter them in any way."

"Do you have a proposition?" Father asks, because he says that people learn better when they learn for themselves.

"Mom can come home from work early," Amanda says quickly. "Because then, if she's here, we could all be together like when we were on the ship, and it'd be -"

"Amanda," Father says, reaching for her hand again and she can immediately feel a deep, rich calm coming from him, warming her entire arm.

"I know," she whispers, because she does know, and because it's easier to say it out loud with her father's hand on hers.

"Can you feel your mother thinking about you?"

Amanda has to try really hard, because it's more difficult with Mom than with him, and even more so now that she's across the city and not just in a different part of the ship. But she can feel her, just barely, bubbling under the stronger sense of her father's presence.

"She would much prefer to be home with you," Father says and Amanda can feel how true it is.

"Maybe she can tell me a story on Thursday morning, and put me to bed before school. That would be a logical solution, right?" Amanda asks and she thinks she can feel her mom smile.

"That would be quite logical," Father agrees, then leans around the chess set to kiss her forehead. "However, until next week, I am afraid I will have to suffice."

"That's acceptable," Amanda says because Father tells good stories, too, even though she really wishes that maybe Mom would come and then they both could be there.

…

On the ship, Uncle Jim lived across the hall. Amanda was supposed to knock, always, but if Uncle Jim was in his quarters he answered. Always. Sometimes he was only free for a minute, and would scoop her up and blow a raspberry on her stomach before sending her on her way. Sometimes, he was free for ages and she would bring over a puzzle, or a game, or he would tell her stories about her mom and Doctor Bones at the Academy, or about Iowa, or about away missions after she pinky swore she wouldn't tell Father anything.

On Earth, he lives near Headquarters and she lives near the Academy, which is much more boring than it had sounded. And she isn't allowed to go to Headquarters by herself, no matter how many times she asks.

So instead of seeing him every day, she sees him every week. Maybe. And instead of knocking on his door if she wants to talk to him, she has to call his comm and Father has to help her. Mom claims it's because Father also misses Uncle Jim and Father claims it is because Amanda is not old enough for her own access code, and Amanda thinks that sometimes her parents just disagree for no reason, even though it's really illogical.

"Why aren't you here?" she asks Uncle Jim when he answers.

"I have a meeting," he says, making the kind of face Father has more than once called unprofessional.

"In the conference room?" Sometimes, when she was sick and couldn't go to her classes, she would go with her parents to meetings, which were really boring and made her make the kind of face Uncle Jim is making.

"In a conference room. Not our conference room."

"Oh." She doesn't know what another conference room would look like, and doesn't want to ask because she likes the thought of Uncle Jim in theirs. "I drew you a picture at school."

She doesn't wait to ask if he wants to see it before running into the kitchen to find it, because he always wants to see what she draws.

"Terrans believe macaroni is a suitable art medium," she explains when she holds it up to the monitor.

"It is a curious custom," Father says, and she sits on his laps instead of in the chair next to him because he's warm and comfortable and she misses the way she used to be able to sit on Uncle Jim's lap when she wanted to show him things. She puts the drawing over her legs so that Uncle Jim can look at it again, if he wants.

"Maybe if you come visit, I can give it to you. Or I can bring it to you," she offers, because it's important to be fair, and because she hasn't been to where he lives yet. She thinks it would be a lot like his rooms on the ship, but maybe he can see the big bridge like she and Mom and Father can from their windows. She thinks about asking him, but then thinks about how sad he might be if he couldn't see the same things as them, after so many years of them looking at the same stars outside the ship.

"Will you come see me soon?" she asks, instead.

"Amanda Panda, I just don't know, sweetie. I-"

"You said you were going to show me panda bears. Are you? Will you come visit and take me? I'll skip school, I don't care, we can go all day."

"You know, kiddo, I miss you so much, I really want to-"

"And Father and Mom aren't good at helping me decide where my stuffed animals should go, so they're still in the same place as the last time you were here and we could move them again. And I don't have stars up yet and we could do that, too," Amanda suggests, leaning towards the screen like she can just reach through it to get to him. Uncle Jim helped her put the entire Alpha Quadrant on her bedroom ceiling and later, Father had held her up to put a dot right where Vulcan had been. Mom had watched them from the doorway, and both her and Father sometimes looked up at it when they came to tuck Amanda in at night.

"What other bright ideas?" Uncle Jim asks.

"Was that a joke?" she asks because she's not always sure.

"It was," Uncle Jim says, very solemnly.

"I have other very bright ideas," she tells him, also very serious. "Maybe you can get me from school one day and I can show it to you and I can also show you this tree on the walk home that looks like the one on Tau Leporis Prime that we climbed and-" she gasps and clasps her hands over her mouth.

"We weren't going to tell your dad!" Uncle Jim is bright red and laughing.

"Sorry," she whispers, but Father doesn't feel too upset.

"It was really not that dangerous," Uncle Jim says, still grinning. "I swear, Spock, we didn't even go that high."

"Should I inform Nyota?"

"No," Amanda and Uncle Jim shout at the same time, because Mom is much, much worse to be in trouble with than Father.

"If I can see Uncle Jim, I won't climb any more trees," Amanda promises, twisting in Father's lap to look at him. "I'll be really good and won't get in trouble and I'll even try to like school really, really hard, and I'll do all my math even without Mr. Chekov."

"It's not you, you're not why I can't come more often," Uncle Jim says, really quick and serious, like how he talks to the crew sometimes when he wants them to listen. "Sweetie, it's not anything you've done or not done."

"When are you coming, then?" Amanda asks.

"I don't know, Manda Banana," Uncle Jim sighs and Father puts his arms around her, hugging her tight.

"Soon?"

"Maybe. I'm trying, munchkin, I'm really trying. Do you know how many meetings they're making me go to?"

"Four?" she guesses, because she once heard him tell Doctor Bones that a fifth meeting would be the end of his sanity, even though Doctor Bones and Mom agreed it was long gone. Amanda doesn't know where it went, but she hopes he never finds it because she likes Uncle Jim exactly like he is.

"Eighteen."

"That's a hyperbole," she tells him, because she's sure that going to eighteen meetings in one day isn't even possible.

"Perhaps we can hold the debrief on the Beren Colony next week and you can come for dinner on Wednesday," Father suggests. Amanda doesn't like to think about how Father gets to see Uncle Jim without her sometimes, but thinks about how lonely Uncle Jim must be without her and tries to be happy at the thought of them together.

"Spock, you want to put off a meeting?" Uncle Jim asks, laughing again. "Is being planetside addling your logic?"

"Rather, it is logical that-"

"Stop," Uncle Jim says, holding up his hands and drawing the word out so that it's really long. Amanda imagines saying it like that, all slow and prolonged, and mouths it to herself. "I'll come, I'll come. Of course I will."

"You will? Really? Really, really, for sure?" Amanda asks, sitting up straight so quickly that her drawing falls to the floor. Father bends to retrieve it as she turns towards the kitchen. "Mom! Uncle Jim's coming on Wednesday!"

"Prior experience suggests that she can hear you at a lower decibel," Father says and Uncle Jim grins and then Mom's there, too. She puts her hand on Amanda's, and Father does too, and Amanda is pretty sure she won't ever stop smiling.

…

On the ship, when she sat on Father's shoulders, she could raise her hand above her head and it would brush the ceiling of the corridors.

On Earth, her hand touches nothing but wind and air and the sky, blue and vast and huge.

There are three birds and a six wisps of altostratus clouds. They're pretty, but she doesn't like clouds that much. She misses the ceiling of the bridge, the ceiling of the mess hall, the ceiling in her bedroom and even the ceiling in Sickbay where she had to stay one night after getting Andorian measles. Mom and Father had stayed with her, and Doctor Bones had been in every time she had coughed, all one hundred and ninety two of them.

"I can't see the stars," she says, looking up and blinking.

"They are there," Father says and squeezes both of her ankles.

It isn't logical to want, but Mom always says she loves Father's and Amanda's illogical parts the best.

"I want to go back home," she whispers.

She feels Father's intention before he acts, so she's already leaning down when he reaches up to grasp her under her arms. She presses her knees into his sides and wraps her arms around his neck. He hugs her tight as he stops walking.

"I want to, as well," he whispers back.

"Can we?" she asks him, but instead of answering he just kisses her cheek.

"The pain of missing it will be alleviated with the passage of time."

"But I don't want to stop missing it, I want to go there," she explains. She wants to undo everything since her last night on board, or maybe even before that, back when it was normal and good and fun and safe, back before she even knew she would ever have to leave.

"I understand."

"Do you?" she asks, not because Father would ever be dishonest, but because she doesn't think he misses every single corridor and turbolift and Jefferies tube and every single crew member, even the ones who never played with her, like she does.

"Right here?" he asks, pressing his finger to her stomach.

"Yes."

"And here?" he asks, touching over her heart and, light, on her throat.

"Yes," she says, swallowing even though it's hard.

"I understand," he says again. "It will never again be the same, but it will get better."

"Promise?"

He nods and kisses her again. "I do."

She's still unsure, but he promised and he hardly ever promises things, since it's illogical to attempt to make guarantees about the future.

"Perhaps you will tell me some of your favorite memories," he suggests, lifting her back onto his shoulders as they resume their walk. "That way, I will know them as well."

"I have a lot," she warns him as his hands close around her ankles again.

"I would very much like to hear them."

She tries to think of one to start with, but there's too many and her throat feels funny when she tries to begin any of them.

"It is sometimes difficult to talk about," he says when she has been silent for 3.6 minutes. "However, I have found that it is worth the exercise."

"How do you know?"

"I often tell your mother stories. If you would like, I would be willing to tell you as well."

She leans down to look at him as he looks up at her.

"Do you ever tell anyone else?"

"No."

"Is Uncle Jim in them?"

"No."

She frowns at him, even though it's hard to lean around his head like that.

"Why not? He should be." She can't imagine that Father's stories would be very good without Uncle Jim in them.

"Your mother is in them, as well as your grandfather, as well as some others whom you have never met."

"But Grandfather was only on the Enterprise once. And I knew everyone on board. Everyone."

"I am aware."

"Then maybe I am not sure that I know what your stories are about," she tells him, since it's important to speak up when you don't understand something, otherwise you'll just keep not understanding it and being confused doesn't feel good at all.

"Perhaps I can give you a sample."

"That's a good idea, Father. Tell me them all at once and then I'll be able to understand really quick," she decides, because it just sounds easiest that way.

"I do not believe that is possible, Amanda."

"If you are not certain as to the possibility, we will have to conduct an experiment," she explains, because that's just what you do when you don't know something. Either that or research the answer, but that's what she does with Mom. With Father, she makes experiments and she's really good at it.

"I suppose we will have to do so," he agrees. "How do you propose we establish the parameters of such?"

"I don't know," she says, shrugging and leaning back again to look at the sky.

"Perhaps we can make an arrangement. I will attempt to tell you my stories conjointly, if you will attempt to think about something other than the Enterprise."

"I don't think I can," she whispers, staring at the wide, blue space above her.

"I did not think so, either, but eventually found I simply had to practice. Your mother helped me."

"She's good at helping," Amanda says.

"She is."

"You're good at helping, too." Father helps her with all sorts of things, too, like tying her shoes, and choosing her lunch for school, and flossing, which she doesn't like but has to do because it's logical, and you just have no choice when it comes to logical things.

"Thank you."

"Are you sure it's still up there?" she asks, squinting as if she can see through the atmosphere.

"It is still up there."

"And what if someday it's not?" she asks, even though it's hard to even think about that. "If it's not there, then I can't go back and make new memories to tell you about and I'll someday run out of stories to tell you."

"Then you can tell me the same ones repeatedly, as many times as you wish. And you will eventually have new experiences that you may wish to share."

"I don't think so. I don't think I'll ever like anything that much."

"Even becoming an owner of a canine?"

"You said we couldn't get a dog," she says, leaning around his head again to look at him. "But can we? Please?"

"Perhaps."

"You had I-Chaya."

"I did. Would you like to hear another story about him?"

"Yes, please."

"Do you have a preference as to a specific one?"

"No. I like all of them." She looks at the sky one last time, then down at him. "Father?"

"Yes?"

"I love you."

He reaches up for her hand and she squeezes his two fingers. "I love you very much as well, Amanda."


End file.
